Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society Vol. 3, No. 1, 2014, pp. 23-47  

2014 S. Collins This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

 

Mapurbe: Spiritual decolonization and the Word in the Chilean Mierdópolis  

 

Sandra Collins  Queens University, Belfast  

 

Abstract  Decolonization does not occur uniformly for all Indigenous people, nor are all Indigenous people in agreement with what constitutes decolonization. For the Mapuche of Chile and Argentina, cultural production serves as a platform from which to voice their grievances and act as spokespeople for the Earth, although the environmental aspects of urban Mapuche cultural production have largely been overlooked. The Mapurbe (Mapuche of the urbe) are the second or third generation Mapuche whose urban condition is a result of geopolitical injustice and who continue to suffer the spiritual repercussions of exile from Mapuche territory. This article explores the ways a new relationship with Mapu (the Earth) is re-negotiated in the absence of ancestral territory and with the loss of language. Drawing on spiritual connotations of the Word in Mapuche cosmo-vision, and Walter Mignolo’s definitions of languaging/bilanguaging, I trace how Mapurbe are empowered by their physical and linguistic marginalization using the work of David Aniñir as a central point of reference. The hybrid eclectic nature of Mapurbe cultural production is a testament to the dynamism of Mapuche culture and demonstrates how decolonization is both a subjective and a collective process.    Keywords: Mapurbe; Mapuche; Indigenous resistance; Indigenous cultural production                  

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Introduction  

The ongoing Indigenous resurgence in Latin America has drawn attention to the multiple ways that Indigenous groups denounce environmental destruction on their territories, as well as contest political systems. Although Indigenous perspectives on the land traditionally correspond to a biocentric philosophy, whereby all life is valued equally, rather than an anthropocentric one in which humans are held as the dominant species of the planet, these fundamental differences as motives for what appears to be altruistic resistance are often dismissed as romantic or essentialist, and therefore do not carry weight in global dialogue. The environmental and spiritual factors behind the resistance of many Indigenous people continue to be underestimated by Western scholars because of the few spaces from which they can be comprehensively articulated. However, political mobilization and activism through Indigenous cultural production has demonstrated how art can contest colonial expansion; emerging Indigenous intellectuals contribute to Indigenous decolonization through the articulation of an “Indianist” ideology and Weltanschauung (Stavenhagen, 2012). Internal changes among Indigenous people, on the other hand, are more difficult to measure, and there is a need for phenomenological research to trace how the resurgence affects young Indigenous people as they reconnect with the ancestral world through new, often contentious ways.   Recent developments among the Mapuche of Southern Chile and Argentina demonstrate how cultural movements are minimized when they do not follow what is perceived as a “spiritual” or “ecological” paradigm. Those writing on the Mapuche conflict, including many Mapuche scholars, have found it more effective to focus on arguments of sovereign rights in the political arena in order to denounce injustice, rather than engage in the wider implications of eco-colonialism. This is because territory is at the root of Mapuche grievances, and has been since the occupation campaigns of the late nineteenth century, when Mapuche lands were subjugated to Chilean and Argentinian administrative division (Bengoa, 2000, p. 132; Mallon, 2005, pp. 6-8; Foerster & Montecinos, 1988, pp. 13-15). Far from dealing with the issue of land usurpation in an equitable manner, recent governments have encouraged the exploitation of natural resources on Indigenous land through mining, logging, fishing and hydroelectric dams. Carried out through a prevailing belief in neoliberalism, these projects flagrantly renege on legal documents ratified by both countries, such as the ILO’s (International Labour Organization) Convention 169, which guarantees Indigenous people a voice in development processes that affect them; noncompliance with such stipulations deny Mapuche their particular condition as Indigenous people (Richards, 2010). In recent years, much emphasis has been placed on the various strategies of resistance employed by Mapuche communities against the neoliberal system (Haughney, 2007, 2012; Carruthers & Rodríguez, 2009) while the environmental motives behind Mapuche resistance do not attract the same degree of interest. Movements with a strong ancestral, spiritual or ecological inclination, particularly in the city, are often thought by anthropologists or sociologists to be essentialist strategies employed in the pursuance of autonomy. While this may be an underlying factor for some groups, many Mapuche perceive their engagement with their feyuntun (belief system) to be spiritually or religiously motivated, though this is rarely, if ever, comprehended in

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and of itself in the academic sphere. In cultural production, however, the repercussions of attempted genocide and contemporary repression of the Mapuche go hand in hand with the suffering of the Earth. Creative expression has enabled long lasting alliances to be formed in a heterogeneous movement and has allowed the Earth’s voice to “speak” through more creative channels. The communication of these beliefs has, for the most part, not been received outside of a poetic or metaphoric context, due a sustained lack of listening on the part of the receiver, the cessation of what the Mapuche call ajkütuwün – to know how to listen (Lienlaf, 1999, p. C9; Quilaqueo & Quintriqueo, pp. 348-349).   Mapuche urban cultural production is a dynamic force that continues to flourish, perhaps because it has escaped the scrutiny and fetishization that more “authentically” Indigenous artists and writers have been subjected to. Second and third generation Mapuche people in urban areas of Chile and Argentina recognize the geopolitical reasons for their physical and spiritual displacement, and negotiate an equally valid, albeit transformed relationship, with the Earth. Literature, music, performance and, increasingly, internet art, are a testament to the many ways that urban Mapuche are working to reconnect with ancestors when the ritual spaces in which to do so are no longer available to them. The most influential of these movements has been that of the Mapurbe. Although Mapurbe is often understood with reference to artistic collectives (Cárcamo-Huechante, 2010; Kropff, 2003, 2004, 2008), my use of the term remains faithful to the poet David Aniñir (2009) who first coined the neologism to identify a socio-political category of second or third generation Mapuche living in the poblaciones of the urban areas of Chile who express their marginal condition in hybrid forms of cultural production (Osorio Santibáñez, 2009). The cultural representations of fluid identities such as the Mapurbe, as well as the tensions or proposed solutions that have arisen with their creation and permutation, tell us much about the challenges of decolonization in an urban environment. Ascribing to an anarchic rejection of existing political systems, blasphemy, rage and violence are used to reassert the Indigenous spirit, allowing Mapurbe to create art outside power structures that perpetuate those established by the colonizer. The Mapurbe deconstruct their own reality based on the denouncement of all systems oriented towards repression of the individual; religious, scholarly and even literary institutions come under criticism. Although there are many ways that Mapurbe art has revitalized Mapuche culture, this article focuses on the challenges faced by urban Mapuche with regards to their connection to the Earth and, in particular, how this has been dealt with in Aniñir’s poetry. Rather than “speaking” through the Mapurbe, Mapu (the Earth) shouts, menaces and upends Christian concepts of revenge and punishment. My analysis of Aniñir’s poetry makes explicit the interconnection of language and the Earth, which persists even after the poet has experienced a loss of language.   This article draws from ethnographic data collected in Chile from 2010-2011 when the bicentennial commemoration of the Chilean nation coincided with the hunger strikes of 52 Mapuche on trial under the unethical counterterrorism legislation re-introduced during the Concertación era (1990-2010). During this time I was struck by how the ritual nature of the word, which is so pervasive in Mapuche poetry and society (Course, 2009, 2011), was set against

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the flimsiness of the political and judicial word of the state. This juxtaposition is nothing new, but became manifest with the cessation of the parlamentos (formal meetings between Mapuche and Spanish/Creole leaders) in 1825, when Western/European spaces of dialogue were prioritized over hybrid congregations that allowed for the partaking of certain Indigenous rites (Contreras Painemal, 2007). The subsequent decision of the Chilean state to “break their word” and ignore agreements made during successive parlamentos that had formally recognized Mapuche territory as an autonomous region, set the precedent for a system based on the withdrawal of promises and refusal to listen - in other words, the monologue of a nation. A century later, as Chile emerged from a brutal seventeen-year dictatorship (1973-1989), this pattern of disillusionment was repeated; dialogue seemed to be a possibility for many Mapuche who played a significant role in Chile’s return to democracy (Neira, 2009). However the widespread optimism experienced upon the return to democracy soon turned to bitterness as the issue of ancestral territory remained unaddressed and government repression on the territories worsened under the so-called “Operación Paciencia”; both the disregard for the “word” and the pillaging of natural resources have since continued unabated. The year 1997 is often pinpointed as a watershed in Chilean/Mapuche relations that marks a departure of some politicized Mapuche from governmental dialogue. The most radical of these are the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM), whose members believe themselves to be the resurgence of weichafe (warriors) who died during the attempted genocide a century before (Pairicán Padilla & Álvarez Vallejos, 2001). This radical shift contributed to the resurgence of other concepts related to battle, such as cona (warrior) and newen, which is often translated as “force” or “energy” in Mapuche art and society. Newen often manifests in tangible activism, as it is increasingly attributed to young urban Mapuche people who fight against government injustices, including those who have died at the hands of Chilean police.1 The spirit world is not immediately apparent in the urban manifestation of newen and for this reason I initially mistook the force to be a physical one. However, newen is underpinned by spiritual forces that connect the Mapuche to their ancestral and spirit world of Wenu Mapu and, as such, can not exist outside of a spiritual context. This realization was most poignantly illustrated to me by the mother of one of the CAM hunger strikers who, along with many others in her community, had been accused of terrorism; the excruciating pain of hunger that her son suffered was made bearable by his newen, which became sharper and stronger within him as his suffering increased. The frustration, rage and disillusionment of the Mapuche people is brought on by the insignificance of the “word” in modern society, but their newen is nurtured by these same circumstances.  

                                                                                                                         1 Alex Lemún Saavedra (2002), Julio Wentukura (2004), Jaime Mendoza Collio (2009), Matías Cartileo Quezada (2008) and more recently (2013) Rodrigo Melinao are some of the young men who have been killed by Chilean police. Other weichafe (like Gabriel Marillán in 2012) have been found dead, and many Mapuche and non-Mapuche believe the state to be at fault.  

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The  urban  condition  

Poets have played a key role in the symbolic integration of the Mapuche world, providing the discourse – “the necessary rescue” (Chihuailaf, 1990) – that initially reconnected Mapuche in exile overseas (particularly during the Pinochet dictatorship) with those still living within the communities and, as technology increased, to a wider network of Indigenous people in the region. This reconnecting involved a double discourse: one that presented a unified image of the Mapuche people, whose demands were more likely to be met through greater mobilization, but one which also involved a genuine rebuilding of their own past beyond the self-essentializing elements of this re-ethnification. It also involved recognition of Mapuche in the urban centers who had been virtually “invisible” in ethnographic studies for a large part of the twentieth century (Aravena, 2003; Chihuailaf, A., 2006; Imilán, 2010). The moment at which the ethnic movement began to gain momentum is often marked by a change in discourse among Mapuche groups that has come to be known as the shift from tierra to territorio, when more emphasis was placed on Mapuche past and a new imaginary of Mapuche territory was articulated. Previously viewed by ethnographers as poor peasants lacking land, Mapuche are now defined as “a people whose territorial sovereignty had been alienated and whose socio-territorial organization had been superseded by Chilean administrative divisions” (Boccara, 2002-3, p. 288). The shift from tierra to territorio also coincided with the beginning of the literary boom referred to by Maribel Mora (2009) as the “fertile period” of Mapuche literature (1989-1999), an unprecedented era of publications, prizes and international attention given to Mapuche poets (Chihuailaf, 1988, 1999 2002; Lienlaf, 1990; Huenún, 2012). Far from decreasing, Mapuche written literature has now formed its own canon that supports the Mapuche movement in various ways and has subsequently formed a strong unifying force in confronting the power of the Chilean state (Crow, 2013, p. 184). The relationship between identity and literature has been crucial to this movement, as the multiple manifestations of Mapuche identity do not merely reflect existing identities but also contribute to their formation.  

The construction of Mapuche identity is particularly visible in the metropolis of Santiago for the urban Mapuche who now understand their position in the poorer areas as one of geopolitical injustice. I have often heard the urban Mapuche condition described as one of exile in a single country. This was also a dominant theme in the poetry of the 1990s, exemplified in Elicura Chihuailaf’s En el país de la memoria (Maputukulpakey) (1988). Since then, the reconnection between urban Mapuche with their family in Wall Mapu has been widely recognized, although few scholars have examined the spiritual significance of separation from Mapu as the natural world, and even fewer have explored this loss in cultural production (a recent exception being Lucía Guerra (2013). Mapu, which Guillaume Boccara translates as territory (2002-3), is not just physical territory, but a multidimensional space in which human beings can live out the natural balance between the spirit and the material world; Mapu encompasses both the “space on which we walk” and the space of ancestors and spirits. The holistic and reciprocal relationship between the spirit and ancestral world and Mapuche people thus defines their resistance. This article will address some of the nuances of this relationship in

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an urban setting where Mapuche, “people of the earth” (Mapu- land, che- people) have been forced from their origin. Urban existence arguably represents the antithesis of Mapuche ideology, as the separation of che (people) from the mapu (land) forces immediate changes in the Indigenous way of life and defies Mapuche traditional forms of cultural practices known as az mapu (“the way of the land”: az- the way, mapu-the land). As a set of rules inherited by their ancestors, az mapu recognizes and determines the biological order and family of each Mapuche and articulates the relation that each family has maintained in his/her place of origin. Consequently, many Mapuche people equate their uprooting from the land to that of a plant from its natural habitat, as they consider themselves brotes de la tierra (“sprouts of the earth”). For Boccara (2002-3), the apparent contradiction of “urban Mapuche” has been overcome in recent years through the permanent circulation of people between city and country, through the spiritual and imaginary link to Wall Mapu, and through the creation of the category of warriache (people of the city). However, whether this contradiction has truly been overcome is debatable and this ambiguity is most evident in spiritual matters. Indeed, it has been a cause of anguish reflected in Mapuche cultural production and the source of one informative study on the grieving that many Mapuche people suffer upon living in the city (Sales Pérez et. al, 1998). There are two trends that exemplify the urban Mapuche response to this question (Collins, 2013); one is by simulating az mapu (the laws of the land) in the city, in spite of the religious challenges entailed in this recreation; the other is through assuming the earth through spiritual means through the creation of new cultures. Both trends are examples of active spiritual decolonization, although the former is aligned with more rigid traditions that arguably stifle cultural production (Martinez Ulloa, 2002), while the latter has led to an explosion of art and music, particularly among young urban Mapuche. The root of conflicting oppositions between these trends can be found in what many refer to as the “tradition vs. modernity” problem, which José Ancán Jara believes can only be addressed by the Mapuche themselves (1997, para 19). This article argues that Mapuche have found that the key to addressing it lies in the underlying spiritual issues, and argues that these have most convincingly been addressed in activities outside of a religious capacity.  

Mapuche  decolonization  

As Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999) has pointed out, Indigenous critique of the colonizing mission is twofold and must revert to both colonized and pre-colonized time, in a search to find what is authentically Indigenous, and what was imposed or taken away by the colonizer - known to the Mapuche as the winka (outsider); a near impossible task given the unreliability of texts and records bent toward assimilation that continue to prioritize European/Western teleologies. While writing can fill in the gaps of a hijacked history and gain recognition through visibility, many Indigenous people are deeply suspicious of the act of writing, as it has been one of the most notoriously detrimental systems used by the colonizer, as numerous Latin American critics have noted in recent decades (Lienhard & Perez, 1992; Lienhard, 1994; Mignolo, 1995). As was the case elsewhere in South America, Western disciplines installed a seemingly progressive

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education system that was instrumental in the systematic erasure of Indigenous people from the Chilean nation. In recent years, attempts to “write” the Mapuche back into the nation through a judicial and political discourse revolving around multiculturalism’s inclusiveness have been at variance with ongoing human rights abuses against them; the questioning of power and authority has, on many occasions, rendered attitudes towards writing as ambivalent. As the preeminent Mapuche poet Elicura Chihuailaf observes, “se facilita cada vez más el borrar con el codo lo que se ha escrito con la mano” (2002). As well as the inherent connection of writing to power, writing is perceived as an inadequate system in which to communicate the ritual and spiritual aspects of communication, as opposed to the long unwritten language of the Mapuche – Mapuzungun, which translates as “the language of the earth.”   Most Mapuche intellectuals and poets view writing as empowering in spite of its inadequacy to convey all the ritual aspects of the Word. Strategies have been increasingly adapted to better reflect Mapuche values in written (Spanish and Mapuzungun) language. The poet Chihuailaf’s preference for orality as a more trustworthy form of communication is demonstrated in his role as “oralitur”, a transmitor of the oral tradition into the Spanish language, since writing as a form of expression “no alcanza a recoger la inmensidad de esa memoria que está pidiendo ser escrita” (Chihuailaf, 1999, p. 25). Forms of writing have been altered by many Mapuche poets in an attempt to recuperate spontaneity and the ritual nature of Mapuzungun. The decolonizing mission in literature has been compared to a “palimpsest”, in reference to the process of scraping under one set of writing to find what was originally there (Huirimilla Oyarzo (2005). Among female poets, this has taken on a more constructive connotation in “weaving,” which draws connections between the textile tradition and memory, drawing continuity between different forms of expression before writing was used by the Mapuche, emphasizing the fact that Mapuche poetry did not appear in the twentieth century but has merely taken on a new form (Moraga García, 2009; Falabella et al., 2009). The conceptualization of Mapuche literature as a palimpsest or “weaving” creates a space in which the artist is confronted with the past and participates in its undoing and recreation, which is both healing and empowering in the physical act that accompanies the written one.   Cultural production in the city has also manifested in ways that emphasize orality and performance; this is most visible in the recent explosion of Mapuche hip-hop. The “mapuchisization” of genres have led to the emergence of punk, heavy metal, and even Celtic music mixed with traditional Mapuche sounds and instruments, most quintessentially the truka truka (horn) and the kultrün (drum). Some critics of these fusions perceive them as awinkado (like the winka), arguing that music should correspond to the rhythms of the earth, just as poetry should capture ritual aspects that have been erased by years of colonization and imposed religions. This has inadvertently formed a kind of a hierarchy of Mapuche high art and popular culture, which divides some Mapuche along the lines of generation, attachment to the lof, politics and religion. Perhaps because of a desire to present a unified image of the Mapuche movement, these tensions are not widely acknowledged from the outset. Traditional forms of art, such as ül, are viewed as more pure, more Mapuche, and thus closer to the earth than the urban

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noise which has lost its connection to the ‘word’. This is further complicated by the acceptance of some types of music, perhaps considered closer to the rural imaginary (ranchero or folk music) over the outright rejection of “gringo”-associated genres. The consideration of the Earth and the political and linguistic diversity that exists among Mapuche people, adds to the convoluted issue of how decolonization is constituted on an individual, as well as an organizational, level.  

Mapuzungun  –  the  language  of  the  Earth  

I have heard it argued on more than one occasion that the Mapudungun language of the Mapuche is made up of onomatopoeic words communicated by the earth and passed down to present-day Mapuche through ancestral knowledge. The lack of linguistic and historical information on Mapudungun supports this theory for some who believe, just as literally, that as choyüm or “brotes de la tierra” (sprouts of the earth) Mapuche have a unique relationship to the earth, as their key to this knowledge has not yet been corrupted. Expert in Mapuche cosmo-vision Armando Marileo Lefio (2007) explains that the messages and codes learned from the earth have been inherited through Mapuzungun from ancestors who “construyeron el sistema de comunicación, es decir, se creó el Mapuzungun o el hablar de la tierra: un modo particular de comunicar, de dialogar, recibir y transmitir mensajes. Mapuzungun, traducido literalmente, es ‘El hablar de la Tierra.’” Learning the ancestral codes, he claims, can be taught through nature: “Todo el Universo, toda la naturaleza y toda la tierra es un libro abierto, dicen nuestros abuelos. Ellos nos orientan, nos ayudan a prever el peligro, nos enseñan. Sólo basta poner atención y abrir nuestro corazón para recibir el mensaje” (p. 39).   Mapuche words are considered poetry because they have a rich significance, whereas “el castellano también lo tenía pero lo mataron los sinónimos. Fueron haciendo fría la palabra. Es que el hombre se ha racionalizado en exceso y ya no entiende” (Anonymous, 1989). As one critic elucidates: “la voz de un hombre no es otra cosa que un punto del gran diálogo que va del árbol a las nubes, a la lluvia y al fuego de los volcanes”, (Barrera, Barrera, Carrasco, Contreras, 2004, p. 268), reminding humans that their utterance is no more significant than those of any other creatures or elements of the Earth. The word of the European, on the other hand, has lost this connection; deafened by the immensity of the modern word, most humans are now incapable of entering into this great dialogue. For the reasons as to why this connection was severed, Walter Mignolo traces how the implementation of grammar was clearly linked to colonization (1992, 1996; See also Von der Valde, 1997). Mignolo makes this connection clear (Chapter Six, 2000) when he solidifies his argument that the politics of language and knowledge are intrinsically connected to the politics of languages and cultures. Perhaps because of its non-adherence to grammar, poetry has been the principal genre wherein the complexities of the spiritual connection to the earth have been most clearly communicated to non-Mapuche.   Significant scholarship on Mapuche written literature has revolved around translation, beginning with Carrasco’s dissection of double register (placing Mapuzungun and Spanish side

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by side in a text) to more rigorous analyses of the complexities involved in the creative operation of the Mapuche translator, most notably in the 1996 publication by Rodrigo Rojas which highlights the challenges faced in producing knowledge in a language that risks extinction. Rojas refers to the translation of major Chilean texts into Mapudungun as a process of rapto (abduction) because the translation process involves a reclaiming of geographical, historical and cosmological concepts (Rojas, pp. 145, 42; Chihuailaf, 1996; Chihuailaf & Manquepi, 2006). However, the potential impact of these publications are undermined considerably by the lack of Mapuche people who read Mapudungun or are even able to afford to buy the books. Both Chihuailaf and Lienlaf are well aware of these conditions. Chihuailaf has admitted the problematic nature of the receptor, arguing that it would make more sense to produce cassettes, as most bilingual Mapuche probably only read in Spanish. The bilingual poet Leonel Lienlaf has, similarly, produced audio-visual works for adults and children in Mapudungun.   Alongside these efforts to reinstate the endangered language of Mapuzungun, the interactions that Mignolo refers to as languaging and bilanguaging are thriving. Languaging as “that moment between speech and writing, before and after language, that language makes possible” (2000, p. 253) maintains the interaction of Mapuche people with the earth, and entails communication beyond words and grammar, essentially ‘thinking beyond language’ by attaching a ritual and spiritual significance to the word. In other words, Mapuche languaging exists while Mapuche perceive their close relation to the earth; it does not require adherence to linguistic regulations. Following from that, ‘bilanguaging’ is the continuous use of concepts that remain untranslated or, as Mignolo calls, “that way of life between languages,” which is part of a “dialogical aesthetic and political process of social transformation,” and entails the transformation of these changing interactions with the earth (2000, p. 265). Both languaging and bilanguaging attest to a vibrant and dynamic culture, although the bilanguaging is demonstrated most vividly among urban Mapuche.   The “informal” Mapurbe movement, with its fluid perception of identity, which views outside influences as enriching rather than detracting from their Indigenous identity, celebrates the impurity of language, as emerging from the colonial difference. As cultural producers, the Mapurbe have escaped the imposition of grammar, and even the insidious repression of an education system, which operates through a colonial epistemology. Liberated by social and religious restrictions from both winka (Chilean) and Mapuche society, decolonization on an individual level is therefore enabled in the ghettos of the forgotten urban areas. Recently equated to Charles Hale’s conflict–prone Indian, Aniñir’s persona at times resembles a rock star more than a poet; particularly when compared to his predecessors who were formally educated and were, argues Joanna Crow, more “marketable” and “desirable” (albeit, for the most part, unwilling) “indios permitidos” (2008). When asked for his views on Chile’s 200th anniversary, Aniñir eloquently replied: “Métanse su bicentenario por la raja y devuelvan los territories” (“shove your bicentennial up your arse and give back our territories”). His irreverence is uncharacteristic of many Mapuche public figures who eschew the negative winka stereotypes that are the root of discrimination against them. Rather than negating the drunken, wild, angry

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Indian persona, he whimsically embraces it. His language is “unpure” because of his condition. This ferocious persona has also emerged from the ‘flayte’, a slang term that refers to a figure and a way of life in the poverty-stricken urban areas of Chile.2 My understanding of flayte is derived from research undertaken in a school in Puente Alto, Santiago in 2010, where I found an odd mixture of shame, disgust and pride towards the flayte construction, perhaps similar in ways to the ghetto culture in the US. My comprehension of flayte culture and slang came about only after living on “both sides of the track”, by experiencing the vastly different worlds of Santiago arriba y abajo, where the economic success of one is built upon the negation of the other. This negation affects Mapuche/Chilean relations, but it also inevitably transforms the ways that urban Mapuche view their own culture and language.  

The  Flayte  –  a  winka  construction  

There are two sources of tension between the more traditional urban Mapuche and the more informal Mapurbe. Although the term warriache literally translates as people (Mapuche) of the city, the tensions inherent within these categories (Boccara, 2002-3; Imilán, 2010) fast distinguish the Mapurbe from their more traditional counterparts. The first source of tension is related to the fear of becoming awinkado (like the winka/Chilean). “Contamination” by the dominant culture is thought to lead to the abandonment of traditions, or result in alcoholism or laziness (vices ironically attributed to the Mapuche over years of racist stereotyping in Chile). As I have already mentioned, the fear of becoming awinkado is also carried over to music. The second divisive issue is related to class and is steeped in associations of Mapuche identity to the campesino, perhaps also connected to a perceived historical camaraderie with the Left. Interconnected with the mythology of the folk hero, a distinction is made between the poor rural Mapuche who continue to fight ongoing colonialism on the territories, and the urban Mapuche whose struggle becomes that of any other member of the Chilean underclass, one of daily survival in the sprawling world of crime, drugs and delinquency. One struggle is localized and heroic, the other is globalized, diluted, and too multi-faceted to really be counted as Indigenous. These attitudes are paralleled in the literary world and are equally insidious. The spontaneous explosion of rage and obscenities, reminiscent of punk or anti-poetry, is, for many, less spiritual than the prolific Mapuche writers who have made visible their struggle to maintain the spiritual dimension of language in their art, and who are lauded as educated, articulate spokespeople.   The collection of poems, Mapurbe, depict the reality of poor urban Mapuche who, for geopolitical reasons, are forced to eke out a living in the most deprived areas of urban Chile in the “mierdópolis” of Santiago. Poor urban Mapuche have suffered a double marginalization, as failure to recognize ethnicity in an urban context rendered them invisible for many years. This invisibility was twofold: urban Mapuche failed to benefit from social schemes aimed at improving the lot of the indio, which have traditionally been directed towards rural Mapuche, but

                                                                                                                         2 For the origins of flayte (ghetto, “chav”) see Araujo, 2009, p. 53.  

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this also made them “less Mapuche” in the eyes of the “true Mapuche” (Terwindt, 2009), their relatives still living in the lof or, from the 1990s onwards, their more culturally “active” urban counterparts who chose to participate in religious and cultural activities in Santiago. Left to fester in the poblaciones, a new reality was formed and this is depicted in the language that has emerged from these areas: dubbed by Aniñir as flaytedungun (speech crossed between Mapudungun and the flayte, or ‘ghetto’ language also known as coa) spoken in the periphery of Santiago. Under continuous enrichment by the neologisms and anachronisms seeking to subvert the class system that represses the poorer sectors of Santiago, flaytedungun is created and recreated outside the sphere of influence of wealthy Chileans. The near impossibility to translate flaytedungun, a point on which I will elaborate in further detail later, means that Aniñir’s publications are not marketable to a universal readership.   Not formally educated, Aniñir does not belong to the plethora of Mapuche academics credited with forming much of the ethnic consciousness in the 1980s and 1990s, many of whom maintain a rural thematic in their poetry. Assuming a role that corresponds to traditional spiritual leaders, as other poets have done, does not correspond to his urban reality. Perhaps in response to Elicura Chihuailaf, the “oralitur,” he writes:    

A veces me cuesta mentir oral  Y escribo  Así mi engaño es hermoso  Y la falsedad ya no hiere.  Este mapuche envestido de jeans  Y poleras de universidades yanquis  Confunden mi habitante  Mezcla de norteamericano  En la grafía exacerbo la labia  Y su espuma se diluye. (Aniñir, Mapurbe, p. 41)  

 A recent poem published on Aniñir’s blog, entitled “Autoretraxto,” identifies his flayte condition as problematic among other poets who have been accepted into mainstream Chilean literary circles: “Los poetas desconfían de ti,/te ven muy flayte,/en la Sociedad de Escritores de Chismes” (2011). His flayte condition alienates him from the other formally educated poets who mistrust him, not only because of his criminal persona, but also because they doubt what he brings to the Mapuche struggle other than eventual assimilation. Through anger, violence and admission of his own impurity, as the “indio de la selva gris,” Aniñir justifies his ethnicity along with the fury that this brings up, claiming his poetic art is “corrosive, foul, crude” and “a poetic revenge on everything” (as quoted in Wadi, 2011). Implicit in “everything” are the internal power structures extant among the Mapuche community, literary or otherwise.   Like other urban Mapuche who have been severed from Ñuke Mapu (Mother Earth), Aniñir’s problems, “vienen de nativos árboles de cemento, confusión tierra asfalto,” rather than the native forests of southern Chile (2009, p. 25). His immediate issues are concerned with

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reconnecting third generation Mapuche with their cousins in the south and reconciling ethnic concepts with the situation that has been forced on them. The población, or ghetto, is a punishment inflicted on the Mapuche by the winka, but becomes transformative precisely because of its peripheral nature. Embracing the Mapurbe, the flayte (also known as pica’o or choro) and “delinquent” is seen as liberating, as its subversion defies assimilation into the dominant culture while injecting an active resistance into an identity that would have been dangerous to flaunt during the years of the dictatorship (Collins, S. (interviewer) & Aniñir, D. (interviewee), 2011, May 11). Flayte bravado combined with stereotypes of the angry and “dangerous Indian” forms the illusion of the permanent threat of violence, as well as maintaining the idea of territory/barrio, rich and poor, “them” and “us”. Mapuche cease to see themselves as “losers” or “victims” and are thus empowered by the reversal of stereotypes that had been used to oppress them. Central to the assumption of the Mapuche flayte is the contradictory celebration of the pastiche with certain “authentic” elements of more “mainstream” Mapuche discourses.   This includes reviving the “angry Indian” stereotype and modifying problematic concepts to appear as though their continuity lies in the pre- rather than the post-modern. Redemption can thus be found in the hybrid – half Mapuche, half flayte. While the explicit spiritual nature of this redemption is negotiated in Mapurbe cultural production, there have been no studies to my knowledge exploring this phenomenon in depth. Laura Kropff’s work looks at how Argentinan Mapurbe have attested their ethnic identity in an urban context through rituals and creation; however, she does not give an analysis of how Mapu (the earth) is negotiated. Instead, she draws a comparison between the rites of passage created by the Mapurbe and the liminality that Victor Witter Turner wrote about, particularly the ‘monstrous’ categories found in ‘threshold people’ (Turner, 1987, pp. 3-19). Turner drew attention to certain positive aspects of liminality, such as the re-combining and reconstruction of society’s “monstrous patterns and shapes” by “neophytes” or participants in a ritual. Kropff’s findings (2008, p. 17) show how this “monstrosity” enriches Mapuche culture and encourages a form of participation that had not previously existed in an urban context. As noted by Kropff (2003) and Imilán (2010), the Mapurbe reclaim the corporality and spontaneity of their traditional art forms (2003) whether it is through a new version of Mapuche dance (coike purun), theatre or hip-hop. However, a major aspect of this participation is also this re-negotiation of the young Mapuche’s relationship with the earth; it is apparent in the mission of many Mapurbe groups, in their lyrics and their activism - most notably We Newen, Puel Kona and Wechekeche Ñi Trawun - who use their music to speak out in defense of Ñuke Mapu (Mother Earth). One young rap artist sees rap as his ‘rogativa’ and rap as sprouting from the earth; it is “rap de la tierra” (Soler, 2012). Before exploring Aniñir’s personal manifestation of Mapu, I return to the subject of bilanguaging in his poetry.  

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Bilanguaging  in  Mapurbe  –  the  “no  apológiko”  poet  

Rodrigo Rojas identifies the Mapuche subaltern language interaction known as “bilanguaging” as a “non domesticated” translation; a translation that does not hide the existence of a distant origin to the reader, one which does not pretend homogeneity, nor look to ‘domesticate’ the other, that which in the Mapurbe context is no apológiko (2004). Aniñir’s Mapurbe venganza a raíz is written in the flaytedungun of the barrio, predominantly (Spanish) street slang particular to Santiago mixed with Mapudungun, with a smattering of English (inglishdugun), for which the poet gives an appendix at the end of the collection of poems. The appendix is a humorous addition, never allowing the reader to fully define the Mapurbe reality from the outside, as the apparent translations lead to more street slang and local (often sexually oriented) jokes presented as definitions.   The term no apológiko is taken from Aniñir’s piece, “Temporada Apológika,” where the poet muses over the use of language after displacement from one’s origin. Read in conjunction with other “mapuchemes” (poems) that explore his existential relationship to words, the association between the earth and language become clear; the physical continuity of the Mapuche and poetry (languaging) are inherently connected. Poetry allows the individual to connect with the world in its purest form and subsequently frees the body from systemic oppression; it is the languaging of decolonization. Linguistic and epistemic liberation are also entwined with sex and procreation throughout the collection. Aniñir draws a picture of a pre-Christian time when the Mapuche had an untainted connection with poetry, equating it to the natural flow of sex:    

Ni de perdones ni pecados  eran las metáforas que oralitó el poeta del antepasado  werkén de pewmas  poeta síquico  poema líquido  gritos de guerra  versos libidinosos  eyaculación de coros hermosos  mientras los canallos se iban por dentro con el tesoro. (pp. 37-38)  

 Before the “perdones” and “pecados” of Christianity, language was a spontaneous poetic experience, a fluid liquid that moved unchallenged in a world depicted as a Garden of Eden, where speech flowed freely from the spirit world. This lucid image is contrasted to the modern city, where the connection of language to the homeland is likened to burnt elastic: “Mi mapuchemes son elásticos quemados,/ Cenizas,/ Rimas de vientos ancestrales” (2009, p. 25). Now, disconnected from the earth, the lyric subject is incoherent, “balbuciendo palabras mapuche sueltas” (p. 31). The sound of baby’s babble, however incoherent, still maintains a connection to Mapudungun, just as physical distance from the homeland does not entirely sever

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the connection between the individual and their origin. Aniñir continues the trope of the stretched umbilical chord evident in others’ work (Chihuailaf, 1988), that which ties Mapuche people to their homeland. However, rather than its presence as a thematic lament, rupture becomes part of the poet’s creative expression:    

Auspiciado por mí mismo  Traído desde el periférico cordón umbilical,  Que da vida a los cabros que escuchan mis poemas,  Levanto este universo poético,  Desde el río Mapocho hacia abajo. (p. 25)  

 The connection of language to the Earth still exists, although it is marked by the impurity of the earth of the city, rendering his poetry “putesías”, “tristemes”:    

Mis tristemes se fecundan en el vientre  De la madre más puta  Mis putesías son como gotas de semen  Cómicas cuestiones que SEMENacen. (p. 25)  

 Poetry and sex go hand in hand just as they have since the point of origin; for it is through the physical act of procreation that the Mapurbe is reunited with Wall Mapu:    

Es PENE-trar a un submundo que solo es para dos  Es imaginar que la realidad es imaginaria  Es creer que yo creo en ti y tú en mí  Es caminar por tierras ancestrales  Y hablar la lengua de los inmortales. (p. 42)  

 The play on words with bodily functions SEMENacen and PENE-trar are not just for vulgar comic value, but rather are indicative of continuity, birth and urban existence. Because the mother is the “más puta,” poetry (a parallel of Mother Earth) is also a prostitute who babbles in the urban vernacular. We meet her first in “Poesía a lo que escribo”, “balbuceando bellos sarcasmos,/ de mapuches muertos que quieren reír,/ y llorar por mí en el verso” (p. 31).   Poetry, his lover, comes in the guise of a “whore” against whom he is warned for her promiscuity and blasphemous way of speaking. The poet succumbs, as her beauty “es el misterio que la orfandad de la tierra anhela” (p. 71). When she gives birth on his soul, the placenta is made up of pieces of porcelain (p. 71). His sexuality defies imposed artificiality; blood and semen soften the harder images of electricity and metal. This juxtaposition attests to the endurance of Mapuche values. Although the hybrid descendants are born broken, deformed and ugly, the sublime (again Poetry, as the language of the earth) is still an inherent part of them. This endurance is political as well as ethnic. The body is reclaimed through sexual behaviour and

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bodily fluids. This connection is repeated in the poem “A-la cabra-pank,” where the innocence of his lover, a “pure” Mapuche, untainted by the vices of the city, is offset with the image of the prostitute Poetry. However, the act of love is still consumed with violence as the lyric subject is desperate to prove to her that he is flesh and blood; he wishes to swallow his lover’s eyes, chew her tongue and suction her vomit, “para que me mires por adentro y cach’ai que no soy de acero” (p. 41). Once again it is through blood or bodily fluids that he is re-united with rural Mapuche and ultimately through poetry that the reconnection with earth is made: “El lexeme recorre mi poca carne/ De pronto el lenguaje es líquido y diferente” (p. 25). This transformation, this liquid language, without “perdones ni pecados,” is precisely the spiritual connection to the earth that colonization has attempted to rupture. It’s fluid nature, moreover, suggests that change and modification does not mean that the connection is broken, but rather that it finds its way organically, much like language (within languaging) adapts and changes without inhibiting communication.   Although Aniñir claims that being Mapuche does not automatically make him a poet, the opposite message is explicit in his work, particularly in the suggestion that the sublime is accessed through blood, as though autonomy were a genetic characteristic of Mapuche people, a longstanding trope since Alonso de Ercilla’s sixteenth-century poem that lauded the “indomitable race”, La Araucana (1569). This idea is poignantly expressed in the poem “Mapurbe” when Aniñir feeds into the stereotype of the concept of the Mapuche as an allegory of freedom. In addressing a young girl in his barrio, the “loca mapunky pos-tierra,” Aniñir reminds her that her bloodline is testament to her inherent autonomy:    

Mapurbe;  La libertad no vive en una estatua allá en Nueva York  La libertad vive en tu interior  Circulando en chispa de sangre  Y pisoteada por tus pies. (p. 34)  

 Aniñir describes his religious beliefs as “newendy”, a neologism created out of the Mapudungun word for “force” (newen) and a term used by Santiaguino construction workers, showing that resistance extends to religion, including that of the Mapuche. In that way, the Mapurbe “revenge on everything” contests any imposed authority and proposes anarchy as an alternative to a hierarchical homogenized Mapuche society. For Aniñir, decolonization is as much a process of the individual as it is for the group. However, in both cases it must occur by recognizing that “liberty” dwells within the individual, and all external control is rejected. In the following section I will explore how the poet explores this concept through poetry.   Before doing so, I refer to Walter Mignolo’s corrective term for the process of transculturation - colonial semiosis (2000, pp. 14-17) - which emphasizes the conflict in which meaning has originated as an appropriate term to describe how Aniñir puts forward alternative perspectives on constructs that have been used to subjugate his people. The condition of the Mapurbe is born in hybridity, but it is also born out of deliberate policies to extract the Mapuche

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from their land, assimilate and ultimately “civilize” them according to capitalist ideology. Aniñir shows how spiritual colonization leads to further systems of control by examining the effects of internal marginalization on the individual, whereby the same tools used by the colonizer to oppress are applied within the Mapuche community. Through a process of colonial semiosis he confronts these issues and simultaneously “takes revenge” by reversing them on those in power, at the same time creating knowledge around concepts which are usually understood according to a European/Western epistemology. Scrutinized in his poetry are the many facets of the concept of marginalization.  

Este  Santiagóniko  wekufe  maloliente  –  Aniñir’s  systematic  revenge  on  everything  

The marginal (that which is inflicted from outside) becomes the center as Aniñir invites the reader/audience to contemplate globalization from the urban Mapuche perspective (Barros Cruz, 2009). The poet assumes his marginality, his flayte condition and his abandonment (his father is drunk, his mother asleep under the cement), to combat the oppressor and revive the stereotype of the angry Indian. Aniñir’s “non-apologetic” translation is thematic as well as linguistic, reflecting the reality of the flayte as well as the Mapuche “bilanguaging”, double entendres that oscillate between the glorified world of punk or rock music, and the underground of La Pintana. Aniñir’s reference to “la rubia de los ojos celestes,” for example, alludes to an amphetamine used in the more marginalized barrios of Santiago in the 1980s, known among the capital’s “old rockers” in the rock band Tumulto (Aniñir, 1999, p. 50; Collins, S. (Interview) & with Ugalde, M. (interviewee), 2010, Sept. 11). References such as these can be read on different levels depending on the proximity to Mapurbe/flayte culture and ensure that the largest audience for these works is local people who understand the “bilanguage”. Centering these marginal realities in Mapudungun and Spanish through the hybrid punk and Mapuche (Mapunky) persona enables the poet/performer to further disengage from what are perceived as some of the most destructive lingering effects of colonialism: guilt and shame.   Aniñir addresses these issues through exploration of the periphery vis-à-vis the Mapuche concept of wekufe, a word that has many meanings within the Mapuche world, as well as for anthropologists who have attempted to translate it. Wekufe is considered the generic term given by the Mapuche to all spirits, forces and malevolent powers of the world and are considered the source of human misfortune. Characterized by negativity, sorcerers are believed to utilize wekufe in order to cause the pain or death of their enemies (González de Nájera, 1889; Bacigalupo, 2007, pp. 18, 21-25, 33, 34-35, 75, 120, 179) The origin of the word wekufe, which means ‘to act from outside’, gives us insight into the reasons for the organization of Mapuche society as well as the deep suspicion of that which is found ‘outside’ (Armayor, 2003 p. 36). It also draws attention to the ways in which Mapuche function under social and religious pressure to maintain the local nucleus.  

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Like many Mapuche concepts, wekufe has undergone a number of changes since contact with European culture, adding a Christian dichotomy to what was arguably a far more equivocal morality. Early missionaries believed that wekufe were demons or forces of evil sent by Satan, and that Mapuche people summoned these forces or formed pacts with the devil during the parlamentos. Mapuche scholars now believe that these early associations with a ‘devil’ were misunderstood. However, the wekufe is still associated with the devil for many Mapuche and the word wekufe is often translated by anthropologists as “demons” (Course, 2010, pp. 92-93). Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, one of the most prolific scholars of wekufe, insists that it is a pre-Christian concept, only the idea of a place of punishment for committing evil deeds is of recent origin. Minche Mapu, the underworld of “bad” energies, corresponds to the Christian concept of Hell, but Bacigalupo claims that the idea of punishment (kastikutran – coming from the Spanish castigo) is at odds with Mapuche religious beliefs (Bacigalupo, 2007, pp. 31, 36).   This is significant given the role that guilt has played in the way that Mapuche view themselves. The guilt and shame of poverty caused the first generation of immigrants in the city to hide their language and their culture and abandon their religious beliefs, while the current generation suffers the guilt and shame resulting from their loss of customs. Mapuche with a memory of the lof, on the other hand, often bear the guilt of breaking the laws of ad mapu; the rupture of these traditions is believed to lead to serious illness and even death. Proximity to an urban area increases susceptibility to these illnesses, as the stress, pollution and winka greed all contribute to the “badness” of the city. This has become a source of distress for many Mapuche in urban areas, and is also why physical ailments suffered in the city are often denotative of more sinister forces at work. It follows that wekufe is also related to the processes of awinkamiento (becoming Chilean-ized, or like the winka), as winka by definition is ‘outsider’ and carries with it negative connotations related to sickness. Bacigalupo’s insights (2007, p. 36) shed light on the fear and dread that urban areas instill in many Mapuche people and also explain the spiritual motive behind warriache resistance to modernization.   In the realm of Mapuche poetry, wekufe has occupied a space because of the profound impression it has left on the Mapuche psyche, particularly in the theme of estrangement, but also in the notion of the urban space as immanently ‘bad’. This badness (the city) is sometimes seen as the universe of the winka, which is intent on the destruction of nature for material gain (Monarca Rodríguez, 2004). The wekufe has also been viewed as the ‘living hell’ that three generations of Mapuche are immersed in. Although wekufe has been used metaphorically by numerous poets to represent the Mapuche condition, the metaphor has rarely gone beyond a statement of their estrangement, limbo or imposed wekufe (marginalization). In other words, wekufe has been recognized and lamented by poets but has never been surmounted. Poets have often limited themselves to decrying the state of wretchedness caused by wekufe, using it as a central theme in their work. Many cling on to a metaphorical Wall Mapu or the community of their childhood, which represents the balance between the three Mapuche worlds (Minche Mapu, Mapu, and Wenu Mapu) and the absence of wekufe. The Mapuche poet in exile traditionally inhabits the metaphorical world of pre-conquest Wall Mapu in order to avoid the pain of

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alienation, and symbolically returns to the mother’s womb. Leaving Wall Mapu and entering the unknown, is essentially entering into wekufe. Having been thrust into the wekufe as a result of a lost battle (that for their homeland) against the winka, the loss of their traditions results in further castigo (punishment) from their ancestors.   Aniñir explores the situation of the third generation Mapuche in the metropolis, who are submerged in wekufe (the ‘badness’ of the periphery). Almost as though through radioactive contamination, they have become the wekufe through their birth in the población. In Aniñir’s case the underworld in question is La Pintana, one of the most impoverished neighbourhoods in Santiago, and also one with the highest Indigenous population. Aniñir shows how the ‘curse’ of wekufe is ingested through the bread from the bakeries typically occupied by Mapuche migrants: “Nacimos en la miérdopolis por culpa del buitre cantor/Nacimos en panaderías para que nos coma la maldición” (1999, p. 75). Wekufe is a state imposed upon the Mapuche by the winka just as the población is a no-man’s land in a war that is still ongoing. Even the geographical features of the city play a part in the punishment of the losers: “La lágrima negra del Mapocho nos acompañó por siempre/en este Santiagóniko wekufe maloliente” (p. 76). Although the devastation caused by this “curse” is a theme in his poetry, Aniñir proposes a solution where his predecessors evinced “victimry” (Vizenor, 1998, p. 91). Aniñir’s strategy is to use the darkness of wekufe as a weapon against his oppressor. He does this by reversing all senses of wekufe: the sense of the marginal, the demonic and the anamorphic.   In keeping with the población as a type of limbo, or underworld (the Mapuche see the world of bad spirits as Minche Mapu), he prays to a dark god: “Padre nuestro que estás en el suelo, putrificado sea tu nombre” (p. 47). “Dios sólo entiende ingles,” he writes, as God has abandoned the periphery and communicates only with the privileged few who live “arriba” in Las Condes or La Reina (p. 67). Even the devil has rejected him (“me siento sentido con la satanidad, la imbécil Satanidad/Palabras de piedra golpean el oído sordo”) as his “gritos de guerra” fall on deaf ears (p. 45). The last poem in the Mapurbe collection was entered in the yearly Metro competition, “Santiago in one hundred words,” in which the winners of flash fiction are posted in the metro trains. Aniñir’s entry, which consisted of one hundred swear words (“conchadesumadre conchadesumadre chucchetumare rechuchatumadre, shetumare”) did not win, but the poem has been performed on numerous occasions throughout Santiago as a satirical comment on the classism that exists in the city, and which is nowhere more visible than on the metro (p. 67). Although Aniñir admits, “el silencio también es resistencia,” even silence comes through him in a shout; there is always a necessity to engage in verbal warfare. His blasphemies are designed to shock and intimidate Christians and ultimately undermine the religion that belongs to, and is controlled by, the ruling class.   The wekufe curse is particularly effective because of its physicality. If the población is transformed into Minche Mapu, then the hybrid creatures emerging from the negative spaces are themselves contaminated with ‘badness’. The assumption of an anamorphic or zoomorphic being becomes the hybrid creature which has evolved from the imposed wekufe (half artificial, half Mapuche) and represents a new figure of horror. The poet is “permutando el pequeño submundo

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que nadie pesca” (Aniñir, 1999, p. 90), reminiscent of the deformed hybrid wekufe creatures from the Huilliche Mapuche culture such as the baby Huaillepen or Cherrufe, who are associated with great calamities and collective death (Bacigalupo, 2007, pp. 203, 207, 217). At times menacing, natural wekufe of the sky and volcanoes threaten revenge: “Mejor un pewma a esta ciudad, donde sus cerros enmascaran bulliciosos y gritones volcanes, que algún día llorarán sangre, excremento y lágrimas” (Aniñir, 1999, p. 56). Just as half the Mapurbe are artificial (electricity, chipped china, and rubber), the other half is divided between blood, semen and poetry. Playing on the figure of libidinous creatures from remote parts of the south of Chile (and indeed the immoral native who shocked the conquistador with his lascivious behaviour), Aniñir writes explicitly about the sexual act and his own nakedness. In this way, the metaphor always returns to the tangible. Revenge is found in the physical multiplication of the Mapurbe figure who, although transformed, even tainted is never assimilated nor erased.   Wekufe represents a reality for urban Mapuche who are in a situation of hell forced upon them by colonial conditions. Through the concept of wekufe, Aniñir’s exploration of Hell also reveals its man-made construction, calling into question dichotomies of good and bad, the natural and the unnatural, the physical and the spiritual. Hell is ultimately overturned because attempts to control nature will ultimately result in its triumph; the Earth always wins. In this way Aniñir draws from Christianity to transform the dominant narrative that those in Hell are doomed. The rejection of Hell exposes the tools that have been manipulated by the Christian church to control people – guilt and shame; two emotions imposed on the Mapuche figure for being Indigenous and then later for not being Indigenous enough, for being forced from Mapu and then denied access to it because of their urban condition. By embracing the “curse”, the marginal or the negative spirits that are the source of guilt and shame, and allowing the sound and energy of rage to manifest, the flow of languaging connected to the earth is unleashed from under the cement of the city.   Through use of motifs like wekufe, other more subtle tropes and messages are layered in, and can be traced through persistent tropes or symbols in Mapuche culture and literature/art, forming a subtext that is not always visible to someone unfamiliar with Mapuche traditions. The bilanguaging in Aniñir’s poetry demonstrates the interaction of the Mapuche with the Earth and is thus spiritual in nature. Furthermore, it is used to undermine all restrictions forced upon the autonomous Mapuche person. As I described in the last section, it is indicative of the anarchic way that young urban Mapuche view their resistance. The playfulness and “taking on” of anamorphic creatures in music, theatre and rituals is becoming increasingly commonplace, as is a trend in speaking for the earth or the earth speaking through the artist.  

Conclusion  

For the majority of the Mapurbe, cultural production is based on environmental as well as cultural activism; the connection to the earth is their right and their protection of the earth is their responsibility. This protection is inscribed in the assumption of the figure of the marginal (be that

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the flayte, the ghetto persona, the warrior or the demon hybrid figure), which defies attempts at assimilation and is instrumental in coming to terms with problematic religious conceptions. While few studies exist on the effects of the Mapurbe cultural production on Mapuche society overall, it has arguably contributed to the physical return of the warrior in Mapuche society through the figure of the weichafe (person who does war) (Collins, 2013). Although weichafe are often equated to the members of the Co-ordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM) (Pairicán & Álvarez Vallejos, 2001), the more militant Mapuche group who have turned their back on negotiations with the Chilean state, the term ‘weichafe’ is increasingly used by urban Mapuche to describe their own personal role in Mapuche resistance. It is also a term used interchangeably with ‘martyr’, and describes the young men who have been killed by Chilean police in recent years, many of whom were born in the city and were influenced by Mapurbe philosophy. As noted by many political scientists, the most significant shift in the conflict between the Mapuche and the Chilean government in recent years has been that move to physical resistance, a shift reflected in the emergence of the Mapurbe during the same years (post 1997).   Developments in the way Mapuche perceive physical continuity and defense are also reflected in the transformation of concepts like ‘Mapu’. The neologism Mapurbe demonstrates the mutations brought about by the colonial experience; Mapuche are not the same as they were in the lof. Unlike the term warriache, the concept of che (being) has been dropped, almost as though the status of being human has been taken from them. The antagonistic manifestation of the Mapurbe demonstrates the presence of the Earth in the city; its existence there is entwined with its resistance. The Mapurbe envision themselves as sprouts of the earth and their multiplication signals the presence and voice of Mapu in the city.   Aninir’s poetry speaks out against colonialism and is an individual’s response to years of oppression felt in a specific place at a specific time. His poetry and the movement now known as Mapurbe are indicative of changes not only among the Indigenous of Santiago, but of the fury felt worldwide by young people whose Earth is stolen from them by multinational corporations and forces working to de-humanize them. What can be learned from the Mapurbe? Once again I return to the evolving concept of Mapu, which has so often been translated within the context of maps, boundaries and political constructions. The Mapurbe perceive of Mapu as a force that overrides boundaries; an organic entity that exists along side the spirit world, without which existence would be impossible. Access to Mapu is enabled by Poetry, which exists outside the conditioning of grammar and repression, and serves as an invitation for the individual to join the great dialogue.          

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References  

Aillapán Cayuleo, L. (2003). Üñümche: hombre pájaro. Santiago: Pehuén.  Aniñir Guilitraro, D. (2009). Mapurbe venganza a raíz. Santiago: Pehuén.  Aniñir Guilitraro, D. (2011). Autoretraxto. Retrieved from http://mapurbe69.blogspot.co.uk  Ancán Jara, J. (1997). Urban Mapuches: Reflections on a Modern Reality in Chile. Abya Yala

News, 10. Retrieved from http://www.mapuche.info/mapuint/ancan00.htm  Anon. (1989, November 18). Leonel Lienlaf. Un poeta mapuche a la luz de una vela. La Época.  Araujo, K. (2009). Habitar lo social: usos y abusos en la vida cotidiana en el chile actual.

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